Creative Design

Graduates from these programmes are offered an in-depth education in all aspects of Creative Design. During the course of their studies in IT Sligo they develop essential soft and hard skills that respond to core competencies, from the ability to model and visualise solutions through user-focused research to an awareness of relevant cultural contexts. Our students understand the diverse and rich contribution design makes to 21st century living.

Creative Design Graduates 2019 Paul Roper and Jamie Keaveney at the 2019 Institute of Designers of Ireland (IDI) Awards. Paul won the Irish Graduate Designer Award and went on to win the Global Undergraduate Awards for Design, and Jamie was Highly Commended

The most significant aspect of the BA in Creative Design is that it affords the student the opportunity to work and create in a variety of design contexts. Whether they are designing Apps for people with mobility issues; or creating environments that respond to multigenerational living; or designing accessories for the car of the future, our students learn to work and develop ideas in collaboration with external bodies and companies. These real-life skills are essential ingredients in the designer’s toolbox.

Students also have the opportunity to travel abroad on Erasmus Exchange to the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya in Vilanova, Spain and Mid Sweden University in Sundsvall, Sweden.

Design creates culture. Culture shapes value. Values determine the future.

Robert L. Peters, Designer of ‘Solace House’

Gemma Carroll Avino Level 8

For my final year project I had a brief that asked me to create an Artificial intelligence concept that could be used to help people live a happy, meaningful and more productive 100 years of life. My suggested solution is a smart hearing aid that is also a Smart device. The hearing aid works in conjunction with an app which monitors your general and cognitive health in order to detect signs of cognitive decline.

The app includes a built in AI assistant that interprets the results gives suggestions on how the user could improve their overall health and wellbeing. I was inspired by an elderly neighbour of mine to look into the area of hearing loss and because of this, the overall project involved a lot of focus on user research and user experience design.

Ross Cassidy Inspirit Level 8

Being creative and designing new innovative ideas is a great passion of mine. Throughout my time on the Creative Design Course I have learned much about the processes of how a product is designed. Inspirit is my final year project. The project consisted of a smart AI alarm clock that would check in on your mental health and would wake the user up using natural methods such as ambient light and aromatherapy. This alarm clock interacts with the Inspirit App which informs the user on how much sleep they were getting and would ask the user how they are feeling during certain periods of the day. The overall goal of this product is to encourage and improve a user’s mental state by creating a quality sleeping environment within the bedroom.

Donnacha Fallon Rewilding Earth Walking Stick (R.E.W.S) Level 8

The R.E.W.S has the appearance of a retractable walking stick, but it is also a re-wilding tool. Designed with comfort in mind the R.E.W.S allows you to plant seeds as you go on long walks and the app keeps track of footsteps and how many seeds are planted.

Shannon Greene Your Choice, at your fingertips Level 8

My name is Shannon Greene and I am an Irish Designer. I do (and I love) product design, graphic design and user experience design.

I enjoy taking complex problems and turning them into a simple and easy to use interface design. User experience and graphics is what I enjoy the most. I completed a project that was based on UX Design. It was to design a voting app for Irish residents. I wanted the app to be accessible, easy to use, secure and non-bias in terms of voting. The app was to encourage the younger generation to get out there and register and to use their vote.

Callum Hunter Food finder device and app Level 8

The food finder device and app is designed to cut down on people’s food waste in their homes. By scanning barcodes of freezer foods, the app can track what foods you contain within your freezer and make sure you use up your food by creating dishes for the users so they won’t go out to supermarkets and buy more foods, which contributes to food waste so we allow so much of our freezer foods to go past its use by date. By using radio frequency identification technology, you can track how long freezer foods have been in your freezer for and therefore not letting the user forget about foods and avoiding foods eventually being thrown out.

Moya Leydon AI 100 Level 8

The goals I set out for this project are to encourage active ageing. I focused on pre-retirement and retired people. I chose this topic because of the mixed emotions people have towards retirement. With life expectancy increasing, people are living longer. Even with people living longer, the retirement age (65) has stayed the same since 1935. Some people look forward to retirement while many others don’t. Throughout this project I wanted to get to understand and empathise with all the different users by understanding their emotions and experiences of retirement.

I designed an App “S E E D” which stands for Skill Enhancement & Employee Development. S E E D is a community based app, allowing generations to connect and learn from one another. The aim of the this app is to promote active ageing and cognitive development. It gives users the opportunity to continue their careers & passions while educating others. S E E D also helps to provide the user with social support, fulfilment and purpose throughout their everyday lives. S E E D is an innovated approach to digital learning.

James Mahady Eco Alum Level 8

Offering a cleaner, greener alternative to single use plastic bottles using aluminium. These aluminium bottles can replace plastic bottles of all sizes and are 100% recyclable. Aluminium is highly abundant, and the materials properties make it suitable for the large production output of the drinks industry.

Daniel Moran WanderCare Level 8

WanderCare is a device used to help both Alzheimers patients, and their carers. It consists of two components - a watch like device worn around the wrist of the Alzheimers patient that contains a tracking monitor and heart rate monitor, and a connected app that allows the caregiver to read

and analyse these metrics. This allows the caregiver to make sure the Alzheimers patient isn’t lost or at risk of wandering, while also giving the added benefit of giving the caregiver peace of mind, since they can now track their loved one’s movements remotely.

Ultan Rooney Fice Level 8

Hi, my name is Ultan Rooney and I’m a product designer here at ITSligo. My product is FICE, a therapy pad which I hope to bring to market. FICE was developed to respond to the concerns of those who suffer from Arthritis and various forms of joint pain. Due to the variety of Arthritis conditions ranging from Rheumatoid, Osteoarthritis and many others surgery is not always an option and even postoperations can be incredibly stressful

and not guaranteed to work for all patients. FICE responds to the needs of the many by inducing Thermo/ Cryotherapy which relieves tension in the knee joint which reduces tension on the physical bones and inflammation of the muscle tissue. Artificial Intelligence monitors the whole procedure ensuring treatment continues until the joint fully recovers from the flare up ensuring a healthy body temperature after treatment.

Cian Walsh Smart Bin Level 8

My name is Cian Walsh and this is the Smart Bin system. The idea here is that this system will measure the number of recycling events that happen in a given area. This could be in a home, a college, a town/city, wherever you like. This information can then be shown in real-time on screens on the bins and also on dedicated dashboards. The two pictures are examples of what it could look like. This will allow for

further experimentation to increase the amount of recycling taking place in a certain area. We all know that recycling is a responsible, sustainable action that needs to become much more common for the sake of the planet’s health. The European Union has launched a Circular Economy Action Plan for a greener Europe and this system will fit perfectly into that plan.